Missing persons website to raise awareness of missing adults and children in Cuyahoga County

View full sizeCuyahoga County Sheriff Frank Bova, seen here in a previous press conference, on Thursday discussed a new website to help find missing adults and children. His department will also have three employees who will work full-time on missing person cases.Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio - A heightened focus on missing adults and children has led Cuyahoga County to launch a website featuring a countywide catalogue of cases and to add three employees to work full-time on the cases.

The site, missingpersonscuyahoga.org, will be fully functioning by mid-August. It will enable people to search cases, find community resources and submit tips on missing persons. The site also can print posters of missing persons to post in their neighborhood, officials said.

The initiative was announced Thursday, six months earlier than planned, because of last week's release of three women who had been held in a Cleveland home for about a decade, said County Executive Ed FitzGerald.

"We wanted to do anything we can to lessen the chances that something of this nature could occur again," he said at a news conference with Sheriff Frank Bova.

FitzGerald said he anticipates that the database and countywide tip line will help the 63 law enforcement agencies in the county better coordinate investigations into the thousands of people who are reported missing each year in the county.

While most people are found within days, those missing longer than 24 hours should be an ongoing priority, he said.

Two deputies whose exclusive focus will be on missing person cases will be added to the county's 12-deputy Impact Unit, which responds for any law enforcement need in the county.

Another new employee will work in the sheriff's department as a liaison with local law enforcement agencies, FitzGerald said. That person will also update the website and social media sites and work with national and state resources.

The county will spend about $250,000 annually for the employees, their training and a vehicle for the deputies, he said. The employees will be hired within 30 days.

On May 6, Berry escaped from Castro's home with her 6-year-old daughter. Police found the other two women inside. Castro, 52, is being held on $8 million bond.

Bova said Thursday that adults who are reported missing pose challenges because it is often not known if they have left voluntarily or under extenuating circumstances. He said cases like that of Michelle Knight, who was 21 when she was reported missing in 2002 and whose case never received the publicity of the other women, should not happen in the future.

Cleveland officials acknowledged last week that police removed Knight's missing-person entry from an FBI database 15 months after she was reported missing because they were unable to contact her mother.

Information will be constantly updated on the website and all missing persons will be sought, Bova said.

"The last few weeks has taught us that the search for missing persons should be a never-ending mission," he said.

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